The top 25 James Bond villains, ranked
From Goldfinger to Jaws to Le Chiffre, we're looking at the best of the worst in 007's cinematic rogues gallery
Film Features James Bond
Since the first time he suavely announced “Bond. James Bond,” cigarette dangling from his lips, in 1962’s Dr. No, we’ve been naturally compelled to root for 007 in his never-ending mission to defend queen, country, and the fate of the free world, especially because he looks so damn cool while doing it. But it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if Bond wasn’t pitted against some of the most colorful, nefarious, quirky, and deadly archenemies in the history of spy cinema.
Admit it: as thrilling as it is to fantasize that you’re the guy in the Aston-Martin DB5 toting the Walther PPK, imagining yourself as one of those worthy adversaries—whether out to conquer the world or to just throw a major beatdown on an MI6 agent—is almost as satisfying. Through 60 years and 25 films (plus one major unofficial entry for good measure), Bond has contended with villains of all shapes, sizes, genders, and nationalities—some as cultured, refined and deep-pocketed as 007 himself, others as cunning and physically skilled, and still others equipped with bizarre weaponry equal to his arsenal of gadgets. What they all have in common is the instinct to kill, licensed or otherwise.
In honor of The A.V. Club’s Villains Month, what follows is our ranking—minus various once-nasty Bond Girls turned nice, and the singular Vesper Lynd, who was forced into treachery—of the 25 greatest Bond villains to date. Do we expect you to read? No—we expect you to DIE!
67 Comments
This is… a list.
Under the “guise”. Not guide…
To be fair, the S and the D are right next to each other on the keyboard.
This is true, and could very well be the explanation. A quick Google search doesn’t show any indication that “under the guide” is commonly used in place of the correct phrase.
The trio of Blofeld, Red Grant and Rosa Klebb in From Russia knock everyone else out of the park. Brains, brawn and intimidating closet lesbianism.
I loved Red Grant and its good placement.One for the interesting patter that Bond recognizes as a bit too on the nose with the English and thus gives up Red as a Russian killer sent after him. It’s something in the day and age would sound like a realistic excuse….that an agent would be a little too much and enough for someone like Bond to be wary.The other for the fight that ensues. If you really watch it, its a real dragout and pretty realistic. None of this sizing one another up, its just an absolute brawl of kicks, elbows, punches, throws, and grappling. These are killers just laying into one another with every intention to kill.And within that fight….FINALLY someone realizes its ok to take something from your surroundings and beat the shit outta each other with it. Both Red and Bond are just ripping the compartment apart and smashing the other. Again, the realism you don’t see normally. Heck the last real fight that was doing this to a good degree I can think of was literally the Jay Berenthal Punisher ass beating he was handing to the 3 hit people who tried to get him in the bathroom. It was brutal, messy, and goddamn savage. As fights are.
Don’t forget Kronsteen, who looks like he could have been Putin’s brother.
There should be a distinction between villains and henchmen.
Scott’s about to get a visit from the Guild Of Calamitous Intent.
Hench 4 Life
I hated Jonathan Pryce’s Elliott Carver. The idea of a media mogul starting wars to sell newspapers always seemed goofy to me when I was a kid. Then I got older, and gained a better understanding of the evil corporations do around the world for a buck. Sociopathic CEOs starting conflicts to serve their own interests is a reality.With that in mind, I rewatched Tomorrow Never Dies as an adult, and I gotta’ say… the plot is even goofier than I thought it was when I was a kid. It doesn’t help that this movie was released during Pierce Brosnan’s awkward transition period – when Roger Moore’s movies were still popular, but the writers were trying to adopt the more serious and violent tone of 90’s action movies. For example, the lairs were starting to become leftover military and scientific installations instead of places that would have cost an ungodly amount of money to build from scratch, like Blofeld’s volcano lair or even Sanchez’s base disguised as a Mexican temple a couple movies before TND. So there’s this really jarring tonal clash between TND’s villains and the reality they’re living in. The movie also began production before the script (which went through several screenwriters) was even finished, so I don’t think the filmmakers were sure what kind of movie they were trying to make.In a different movie, Carver and his explosive plan to get exclusive broadcasting rights in China would have fit right in. But in Tomorrow Never Dies, Jonathan Pryce’s performance is weirdly over-the-top and hammy in a way that doesn’t fit what’s happening around him. I still consider him one of the worst Bond villains.Despite all of that, I still love things like the opening set piece, the Hamburg garage set piece, and David Arnold’s first Bond score. Michelle Yeoh & Teri Hatcher are also both great (though the latter is unjustifiably killed off). It’s one of the things I really admire about the franchise: even the worst entries have these wonderful moments that I love to revisit every few years.
They also cut out his henchman’s intended gimmick of throwing playing cards to make it a more realistic setting, which had been the entire reason for casting Ricky Jay. The character is completely forgettable as a result.
It’s also another in the line of You Only Live Twice rehashes in which the villain tricks two countries into aiming guns at each other. Seemed kind of lazy, like they were deliberately trying to make it Brosnan’s Spy Who Loved Me. It’s an ok Bond film, but Carver’s Rupert Murdoch is pretty much the only thing original in it.
I thought the idea of M ordering Bond to exploit a former lover to get close to the villain was interesting, and I don’t remember seeing it any other Bond film. I know it’s still not the most original idea in the world, but I thought it could have created a new dynamic. Instead, they do practically nothing with it.
Is that when they made Academy Award winner Judi Dench tell Bond he had to “pump her for information”? I felt dirty after that.
Yup!
Yeah, but there are really only a handful of bad guy schemes in the movies. They all repeat, really.
1) Engineering a scarcity to make your stuff more valuable. Gold with Goldfinger, Computer chips with a View to a Kill, Oil with the World is Not Enough. Drugs in Live and Let Die. Drugs in the Living Daylights. Drugs in Licence to Kill.
2) Blowing up the world to make paradise somewhere else (Moonraker/Spy Who Loved Me) or for political ends (Octopussy/Die Another Day) or for money (Tomorrow Never Dies/You Only Live Twice/Goldeneye)
3) Holding the world ransom with nukes or some other weapon. (Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)4) Getting some spy doohickey before the other guy does (From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only)
Since it was released in ‘97 it’s weird how much Carver looks like ‘00s Steve Jobs.
It’s a great concept for a villain and if Anthony Hopkins had done it like he was asked, it would have been great.
Pryce just acts with his eyebrow and I want to punch him in the dick the entire time.
On the plus side, Vincent Schiavelli. Also, the motorbike vs helicopter chase.
There’s probably more things that are genuinely fantastic in that movie; I just named the first things that popped into my head. But your comment immediately made me go rewatch that Dr. Kaufman scene in the hotel room. Such a wonderful little scene. Still a goofy-ass movie, but his character and dialogue really work where Carver, Stamper, and Ricky Jay don’t.
Yeah, it’s goofy and uneven, but damn do I love Tomorrow Never Dies. After GoldenEye – which was a different composer away from being absolutely phenomenal for me – David Arnold really made the movie for me.Love all of the set pieces, too; the Hamburg one is top notch.
Richard Kiel’s autobiography opens with how Eon invited him to an early screening of The Spy Who Loved Me for their low level employees. Typically the people actually involved in the movie were kept away from these, but in this case they were so sure that Jaws would get all the biggest reactions that they wanted him to be there to see it. He also described how the crew was flip-flopping throughout production over whether they should keep the character alive for a possible reappearance, and knew they’d made the right choice when audiences universally burst into wild applause at his final popping up in the ocean.
The World Is Not Enough drives me crazy, because it comes so close to being a classic Bond film. On paper, it could’ve been Skyfall a decade earlier than what we got. But one too many cheesy set-pieces and the presence of Denise Richards really sinks the whole thing.
I like The World Is Not Enough, it’s my favorite Brosnan Bond movie. Sure Denise Richards is just a tad beyond the pale even for Bond girls, but Elektra and Renard as the anti-Blofeld/Tracy are pretty compelling. The nuclear sub is a little tacked on.
Yeah anything after Elektra dies, I just don’t care. The air has been let out of the film by then.
I still have a soft spot for TWiNE. It was the first Bond film I ever saw in a movie theater, and at that age, I wasn’t evaluating Denise Richards on her acting ability. Even now that I’m older, I think the movie still holds up very well (except Denise Richards; her performance really does drag down any scene she’s in). I’d love to read why you think the set pieces are “cheesy.”I *think* you’re talking about things like Bond adjusting his tie while the Q-boat is submerged, or driving the same boat on land. I can see how that would take people out of the movie. The pre-Moore movies didn’t really have humor beats in the middle of set pieces. I’ve always felt that the longer the series went on, inserting those beats into set pieces, particularly any kind of chase, inspired moments of creativity and inventiveness that kept the action fresh, since the audience will never believe Bond is truly in danger.
The helicopter saw blade scene at the docks.
It feels so out of place with the rest of the movie.
It’s like they went “We spent a ton of money on this prop, we’re using it!”
The helicpeter tree trimmer looks like such a ridiculous Bond thing but they are really used to cut large tree lines. No doubt a producer drove by one in use and ordered it be written in to the next Bond film.
That movie isn’t cheesy at all. It is the best Brosnan performance and he and Sophie Marceau light up the fucking screen. She makes Denise Richards look like a booger.
Replace Denise Richards with literally any stripper and you have a better movie.
I haven’t watched that one in a while. I remember enjoying it an awful lot whenever I watched it. I think I even have the DVD floating around somewhere. Maybe I’ll try to give it a rewatch this weekend.
At least the casting of Denise Richards did give us this:
Pleasance makes a great, sinister Blofeld, but it’s not his most sinister role, as anybody watching Saturday morning TV in 70s Britain will tell you…
Do children not get swimming lessons in the UK?
They can’t go in lakes because of all the watery tarts with swords.
Well we were encouraged to…
Although the other Saturday morning TV advert about learning to swim involved an Australian artist/TV presenter in a pair of budgie smugglers in a pool with a load of kids. Later in life he was sent to prison on multiple sexual assault charges against 14 year old and 16 year old girls.
Gross!
…and then there’s Woke in Fright:
Yaphet “Kotto”
This is extremely generous to Diamonds’ presentation of Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, which is fully in “let’s make fun of the homosexuals!” territory. Off the top of my head, there’s Mr. Kidd commenting on Miss Case: “She’s attractive … for a girl”, which elicits a disapproving look from Mr. Wint. Then there’s the final fight where Bond essentially engages in a little ass play with Mr. Wint, who lets out an enraptured squeal.
That movie is an abomination against God.
Honestly I had blocked out how gross that was… very much a part of the queer coded villain territory of the time.
It seem like there is a billionaire race between Elon and Bezos to see who can be the most like Hugo Drax.
I think Bezos is further ahead in the Bond-villainy race:
they made a character named Lucifer Satan and he’s boring as fuck, this franchise is so washed
Whatever you think of the rankings, I’d say this list is pretty Onatopp of things.
Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi. Live and Let Die has Roger Moore, the worst Bond (for me) but it was his first, so he hadn’t yet decided to hit full smirk yet.
Shame Robert Carlyle’s main villain Renard from The World is Not Enough didn’t make the list. He felt genuinely scary to me when I saw it in theaters; a sociopathic and ruthless villain who *also* doesn’t feel physical pain? Yikes. Same with the henchman Stamper from Tomorrow Never Dies; he was clearly outshined by his boss Elliot Carver in the hamminess factor, but man was he scary. Bond didn’t stand a chance against him in a straight up fight and, naturally, only managed to best him through sheer luck.Also, as much as I loved the Bond video game Everything or Nothing which brought back the likenesses and vocal talents of key characters like Judy Dench’s M, John Cleese’s R, and of course Brosnan’s version of Bond, I *didn’t* like how they wasted Richard Keil’s reprisal of Jaws on turning him back into a villainous non-speaking henchman, undoing all the stuff in Moonraker where he became an unlikely ally. However, EoN did also feature a delightfully hammy turn from Willem Dafoe as the villainous protege of Christopher Walken’s A View to a Kill villain Max Zorin (confirming a direct link between the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan versions of Bond), so it wasn’t all bad. And from what I remember it had pretty decent gameplay as well.
Stamper was such a bargain bin Red Grant, always seemed very forgettable to me.
The badass Jaws turned into an indestructible toon. Hilariously bad.
I remember being so disappointed when Xenia Onatopp died in ‘GoldenEye’. Famke Janssen was an absolute blast in that film, and her absence is felt in the rest of it.
I’m sure I’m in the minority in thinking that License To Kill is one of the best of the series, and a big reason for that is Robert Davi’s Franz Sanchez as the villain. He’s one of the more realistic bad guys in the franchise (such as that goes), as well as one of the most sadistic (“Did he promise you his heart? Give her his heart”) – plus, he’s responsible for possibly the most grotesque death in the entire series, involving Anthony Zerbe in a pressurized diving bell.
Agreed!
I love Licence to Kill, it’s also one of the last movies to include a lot of Ian Fleming’s material. Also, Benicio Del Toro!
I don’t particularly care for the film, but I agree with your assessment of Sanchez. He’s cruel but without the usual Bond villain megalomania.
Can’t argue with the top two, but I’d swap ‘em. As good as Silva is, you can’t compete with “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!”. Waltz’s Blofeld felt like a huge missed opportunity. Perfect casting, nothing interesting to do.
Waltz’s Blofeld was more than a missed opportunity – they absolutely botched the character in almost every way.
Goldfinger’s response to Bond has to be one of the greatest villain lines in all of movie history. Also, Harold Sakata was an American, born in Kona, Hawaii.
You should have two lists, one for the Masterminds and one for the Henchmen.Now which Mastermind pairs best with which Henchmen. I don’t think anyone can beat the pairing of Goldfinger and Oddjob.
I don’t know who the #1 Bond villain is, I just know it’s not Raoul Silva.
Skyfall is pretty to look at, but holy crap it’s so overrated.
Robert Shaw’s Red Grant in ‘From Russia with Love’ was easily above half of the above list.
Monica Belluci should have played Blofeld, and that they didn’t bring Hinx back for NTTD shows that these jerks didn’t care if the fans had a good time at all.
I’m surprised all of the Felix Leiters aren’t listed, who must kill their predecessors to take their place, all while making sure Bond doesn’t notice.